


He Lights A Candle And Remembers

by silverskyfullofstars



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America: The First Avenger - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Holocaust Rememberance Day 2018, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Memories, just lists numbers, mentions the Holocaust but no graphic stuff, trilingual Bucky Barnes, yahrzeit candles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 07:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13497384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverskyfullofstars/pseuds/silverskyfullofstars
Summary: On the first Holocaust Rememberance Day since he woke up from the ice, Steve Rogers remembers Bucky Barnes.





	He Lights A Candle And Remembers

**Author's Note:**

> It's International Holocaust Rememberance Day, and I've been meaning to write about my headcanoned Ashkenazi Jewish Bucky Barnes. Here's my attempt, the un-betaed product of about half an hour's writing.

It’s January - the first January since Steve woke up from the ice. Januaries are harder now - partially because of the biting cold, so similar and yet different to the all-encompassing cold of a block of ice. And because it was in January of 1945, so many years ago, that Bucky died.

Steve finds himself thinking about that day, but is pulled out of his memories by a woman’s voice on the radio.  
“Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, when we acknowledge the seventeen million victims of the Holocaust during World War II.”  
Steve had looked up the Holocaust when he’d first woken up. He’d known it was going on when he was in the army, but he’d never known the magnitude of it until it showed up in the files SHIELD gave him. 6 million Jews dead. 250,000 people with disabilities killed. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people in the LGBTQ+ community and millions of civilians and prisoners of war murdered. The horrors had stretched far beyond what he had seen.

Bucky’s family had been Jewish. His parents had immigrated from Romania when World War I moved too close for comfort, and Bucky had been born in America. His parents had spoken Romanian, Yiddish, and some English, which had gotten better over time. Bucky could speak all three nearly fluently. Steve remembers when Bucky’s mother had nicknamed him Alter, a name often given to sickly newborns. It meant “old,” and was intended to confuse the Angel of Death. He had resented it at the time, since he couldn’t stand to have his poor health pointed out, but as the years went by, he realized the affection behind it. Bucky had a Hebrew name too - Chaim Baruch. It translated to “Life’s Blessing,” and had been his original name. The Barnes had asked a neighbor for a similar-sounding English name, and the neighbor suggested James Buchanan, after an American president. Though he went by James at school, he was always Chaim at home, except to his sister. Rivkah, called Rebecca at school, always called him Bucky. Steve picked it up too, and soon Bucky had three names. When he was little, Steve used to be jealous of all Bucky’s names. He was just boring old Steve. But to Mrs. Barnes, he was always Alter.

Steve wishes he remembered more about those days. How Bucky would complain to Steve about going to synagogue every Friday, and Steve would complain right back about church on Sundays. How he went to synagogue with Bucky and his family once on Rosh Hashanah, and the rabbi gave all the kids apples and honey. How Bucky looked so proud at his bar mitzvah, and how he said the mourner’s Kaddish for Steve’s mother when she died. He’d said the Hebrew words slowly, pouring his sorrow and his comfort for Steve into the ancient language. Somehow, that had been exactly what Steve needed to feel a little bit better.

As the war grew closer, the memories grew darker.  
How Bucky’s father brought home letters from Romania that his parents whispered worriedly at night. When Bucky asked, they said they were from family who wanted to visit. How Bucky’s mother reprimanded him for starting to say the Shehecheyanu when he was drafted.  
“This is not to be celebrated, Chaim. We do not rejoice in war.”  
How Bucky had never really worried about saying the Shema when they were at home, but whispered it each evening they were at war - in every tent, trench, and foxhole. How he said Kaddish for each dead soldier, just as he had for Mrs. Rogers. How he smiled sadly on the walk back from Azzano.  
“Think this is a good time for the Shehecheyanu, Stevie?”  
He’d grinned, but it hadn’t reached his eyes. His smiles never had after that.  
Steve never knew if Bucky had said the Shema when he fell, but that night, Steve stumbled through Kaddish for Bucky, reading the smudged phonetic transliteration on the paper in Bucky’s few remaining belongings. He said it for every dead soldier until the Valkyrie.

Steve suddenly remembers something else. Yahrzeit candles, lit on the anniversary of a loved one’s death. Mrs. Barnes had lit one after Mrs. Rogers died, and every year after that. Steve knows he doesn’t have a yahrzeit candle, but he has regular candles. It’s January, the month Bucky died and the day to remember all the people who died in the Holocaust. Steve lights a candle, and he remembers.


End file.
